CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) Shares Sold by Threadgill Financial LLC

Threadgill Financial LLC reduced its stake in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 21.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 25,395 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 7,000 shares during the period. CenterPoint Energy makes up about 0.4% of Threadgill Financial LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 28th biggest holding. Threadgill Financial LLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $806,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Czech National Bank grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 141,306 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $4,484,000 after buying an additional 8,544 shares in the last quarter. First Hawaiian Bank lifted its position in CenterPoint Energy by 10.2% during the 4th quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 12,521 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $397,000 after acquiring an additional 1,160 shares in the last quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. boosted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 13,356 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $424,000 after acquiring an additional 676 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in CenterPoint Energy by 53.3% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 11,459 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $364,000 after acquiring an additional 3,983 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 7.1% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 847,366 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $24,930,000 after purchasing an additional 56,037 shares during the period. 91.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Scotiabank upgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $30.00 to $35.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. StockNews.com lowered CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, LADENBURG THALM/SH SH initiated coverage on CenterPoint Energy in a report on Thursday, December 12th. They set a “buy” rating and a $34.50 price objective on the stock. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $31.27.

CenterPoint Energy Price Performance

CNP opened at $31.22 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $31.46 and its 200 day moving average price is $29.56. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.41 and a fifty-two week high of $33.00. The firm has a market cap of $20.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.95.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31. The business had revenue of $1.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.40 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.82%. This is a boost from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 20th. CenterPoint Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 58.28%.

CenterPoint Energy Profile

CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Electric and Natural Gas. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as optimizes assets in the wholesale power market.